


Learn To Like Just Being Loved

by Eisenschrott



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Jealousy, M/M, Past Character Death, Porn with Feelings, Prostate Massage, Rimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 06:04:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20169376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisenschrott/pseuds/Eisenschrott
Summary: An ordinary night-time rendezvous in the admiral's quarters: questionable drinks, ruined bedsheets, Imperial Army sense of humor, and emotional issues lurking.But this is mostly about the ruined bedsheets.





	Learn To Like Just Being Loved

**Author's Note:**

> Some events mentioned in this fic come from Bunn1cula's fic [_MSU2 (or Hepaticide is Painless)_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14388018) and you should check it out if you haven't already.
> 
> Title from _'13: Big Enough For The Both Of Us_ by the Magnetic Fields.

_Get a grip on yourself, Firmus, damn it_.

Admiral Piett tapped his finger on the side of the datapad he had been forcing himself to read for the past twenty-nine minutes, eighteen seconds—nineteen, twenty...

He turned the datapad clock off. Despite its small font size, that late hour and its seconds offensively ticking by wouldn’t stop luring his gaze away from the text.

_You are a patient man_.

Force, he was. He had endured the long wait for a command out of Axxila, three years that felt like thirty taking orders from Admiral Ozzel, the stomach-gnawing stasis and dazing accelerations that warped time during battles.

He could kriffing well wait for thirty standard minutes past the usual rendezvous time, and not smoke even one cigarette while he did. He had already finished his pack for today, anyway.

Veers had warned him he might run a bit late. Piett could come up with a half dozen plausible reasons why—generals, just like admirals, had their stacks of paperwork to go through—which his sullen brain nonetheless refused to accept, with one ludicrous exception; it was an annoying whisper from a dark little corner, like the rattle of a malfunctioning fan somewhere in the ventilation ducts: _he doesn’t want to come here_.

He reread the datapad page he had just skimmed through. A dozen engineering decks on the _Executor_ reported problems to their energy renewal systems; diagnostics teams pointed to a dozen more causes, from inadequate material to overused components, and the everlasting work of Rebel saboteurs in the factories…

He was halfway through the densest section of raw data, when the door to his quarters slid open. He knew it was Veers by a glance at his straight-backed shape in the threshold, the cadenced thuds of his footfalls as he stepped inside—well, that, and the door had been reprogrammed to open with the general’s code cylinder. The frown that had set on Piett’s face relaxed, one muscle at a time, leaving a slight ache behind. “Ah, General. Glad you could make it here after all.”

“Did you doubt me?”

Piett could hear the sardonic smile in his voice, and it spread to his own face as he looked up—to the door first, which was safely closed, then to Veers. The general started taking his cap and gloves off, as natural as if he were home. A husband just back from work… Had Veers done the same when he returned to his _actual_ home and his wife watched him make himself comfortable?

Piett swept the thought under a thick rug of banter. “I have not given you permission to undress quite yet, General.”

“My apologies, sir.” He pulled his gloves back on, smoothed his hair with his fingers and donned his cap again. “Do I have permission to come and give you a kiss?”

Piett was tempted to grant him a permission to slam him flat to the floor and fuck him into the closest star. “You do, dear.”

Veers was on him, towering at the other side of the table, in two strides. Without giving Piett a second to put the datapad down, he cupped Piett’s face between his hands and leaned into a deep, open-mouthed kiss that tasted of fresh toothpaste.

Piett’s eyelids fluttered and closed. The datapad slipped from his fingers and clattered onto the table, a soft faraway sound muffled through the wet, grunting noises of their mouths that echoed all the way to the basest animal chunk of Piett’s brain. Veers’ tongue receded at the onslaught of his, a polite surrender, a hum of wordless invitation. He returned the kiss, fiercely, with teeth, with one hand gripping Veers’ collar and the other his hair, swatting the cap away.

Veers broke the kiss first and stood back, panting, his pale cheeks rosy.

“Well, Max—” Breathlessness broke down into a coughing fit. Piett clamped both hands over his mouth until it was over, and glared at Veers, who of bloody course had the gall to laugh.

“Don’t even _try_ to make a choking joke, General,” said Piett as soon as the cough subsided.

“Far be it from me, sir. I do not wish to jam either your blaster or mine.”

Piett spared a mournful thought for the carefree days of yore, when he could explore breathplay with a well-paid professional in a safe place (meaning, the professional would _likely_ not be an assassin hired by a vengeful Hutt to strangle the anti-pirate flotilla’s commander) and it was simply a practice he was not into, rather than the brutal turn-off it had become nowadays. “Good. Care for a cup of tea before we reenact the devastation of Parnassus on my bed?”

“The what?”

“Nuclear accident on an Outer Rim mining planet, a while ago. One thing that Rebel propaganda hasn’t accused _us_ of perpetrating, for once.”

“How jolly. But I’d prefer something stronger than tea, if the Navy doesn’t mind sharing its precious fuel stocks.”

Piett heaved a sigh and went to fetch two tumblers and an unlabeled bottle the size of his palm from the cabinet under the beverages dispenser. “Can the Army ever do _anything_ without riding on our backs?” He placed the tumblers on the table, opened the bottle, sniffed its content, and poured a half-glass fill for each. “To the Empire,” he said lifting his tumbler.

“To peace,” Veers repeated a toast that made the rounds in the mess halls shortly after every victory substantial enough to seem decisive. Hoth, in this case. The toast tended to fall out of fashion in a few weeks, as the war continued.

The tumblers clinked. Piett downed the drink in one burning go, keeping his eyes on Veers. The spectacle did not disappoint: Veers took a little sip, his eyes widened, and he grimaced. “What in blazes is this?”

“Cantonican cactus liqueur, or as such it was sold to me.”

“I bet it’s poisonous.”

“Not if you only drink it once in your lifetime, it is said.”

Veers looked at the bottle. “You definitely drank this monstrosity more than once.”

“Are you finishing your glass or do I have to help you, lightweight?”

“Planning to drug me and use my body as it pleases you while I’m knocked out? Not going to work, sorry.” Veers put the tumbler down on the table, the scent of the liqueur adding an herby note to the recycled air.

Piett frowned. “I would never do that, Max. You know it.” _Oh, doesn’t he? _The sweet trail the liqueur had blazed in his mouth and down his throat still burned, but Piett’s skin prickled as if the synthwool of his uniform had been trimmed down to a thin, unprotecting peel in the vac-side cold. _For all he _does_ know, you are a conniving upstart with a sabacc face and a sordid past in the badlands of the galaxy. For all you let him know about you, it is only fair he thinks you could—_

“I do, I do. And what I mean to give you tonight, I give as it pleases _me_.” Veers smiled jauntily, but the red flush on his face betrayed the bashfulness under the seductive exterior. He spoke and breathed a little too evenly to sound at complete ease. “I came in so late because I was getting ready.”

Realization began to dawn on Piett—no, not realization, _hope_. Wishful thinking. So bloody daft.

Veers held his breath for a second. “Long story short, my arse right now is so clean you could eat off it.”

Piett opened his mouth, but was at a loss for a reply. He tried to smile; his lips curled in a way that must make him resemble a Devaronian high on sulfur fumes.

The smile on Veers’ handsome face, though, disappeared altogether in a sigh of exasperation. “Fuck, I’m terrible at this sort of thing. Should’ve known better.”

“What sort of thing?”

“She always told me… Terrible at dirty talk, I mean. Back when my wife and I started dating—”

“Oh, so you were being literal! I’m so sorry, dear, I was quite distracted, didn’t mean to make it awkward for you.” Piett tried to smile again. “Please, do make yourself comfortable in bed; you know the drill.”

Veers blinked. “…I sure do.” He started towards the bed, fidgeting with the shoulder snap of his tunic.

“Take only your belt and boots off,” Piett told him as he scooped up the glass Veers had left almost untouched. “I want to dispose of the rest myself.”

“Yessir!”

That sounded sincere and thawed some of the space chill from Piett’s bones, but could not replace the extra shot of liquid courage he knocked back. As the second wave of liqueur rekindled the fire of the first, Piett spied Veers on the edge of the bed, carefully pulling his boots off, stretching his legs, flexing his toes in white socks, removing his gloves and his belt and rolling it up in a tight coil with the buckle at the center. As neat as the day he’d graduated the academy. And Piett would fuck that neatness out of him in a matter of minutes.

Piett took off his unfastened, beltless tunic and hung it on the back of the chair. He sensed Veers’ eyes roaming all over him and met them, pinned their stare to his as he traversed the room and came to stand between Veers’ knees, pushing his legs open until they were spread wide. He lay his hands on both sides of Veers’ face, gloved thumbs tracing his sharp jaw and prying his lips half-open. Veers reciprocated, his large, warm hands fanning over Piett’s thighs, sliding in slow circles between his hips and the beginning of a swell under the fly of his trousers.

“My gloves, General. Use your teeth.”

Veers gave a light suck at Piett’s right thumb, gently bit the top of the glove finger with his front teeth, and pulled. He did the same with the forefinger until the whole glove came off in two swift pulls, then did the same with the left hand. He tossed Piett’s gloves to the nightstand and looked up at the admiral through bright green eyes, the desire so barefaced it was an invitation to tease.

Piett gripped his shoulders and gave a few firm strokes; he wrapped his right fist around Veers’ neck, without strangling, just to make him feel the pressure, and a shiver shook the general’s whole frame. The apple of his throat bobbed under Piett’s palm. With his left hand he unfastened the shoulder snap, and the right snaked under Veers’ loosened collar, swatting the flap of his tunic open. With both hands he groped Veers’ heaving chest—thumping heartbeat, curly hair, hard nipples—through the light fabric of the undershirt. He barely noticed the fingers between his legs and the sound of his trousers zipper, until his cock twitched, encased in the tight confinement of his pants and Veers’ palms.

“Lie down,” he breathed.

The briefest shadow of disappointment passed over Veers’ face; he obeyed, as prompt and respectful as the good soldier he was, positioning himself supine on the bed. A mound bulged from his overdressed groin, and Piett’s erection ached in sympathy.

He made short work of Veers’ trousers and boxers, which he shoved to the floor. Forcing himself not to even glance at the hardening cock he had just liberated was not easy. He focused on the quiver of Veers’ lower lip as he breathed out, the flush on his cheeks, the plea in his eyes that followed Piett’s every movement.

Piett felt up his knees, the inside of his muscular thighs, covered in soft tufts of hair; Veers shifted his legs as far apart as he could, his right foot slipping off the edge of the mattress.

It was warm where Piett reached down to touch. Warmer even than his balls, a hidden smooth patch around silky hair. At just the lightest, tentative pressure over his hole, Veers’ breath hitched; he arched his back and rolled his hips downwards, as if in a hopeless attempt at impaling himself on Piett’s finger.

“Is this really what you want tonight, General?” Piett asked in the most neutral, normal tone he could manage, while the tip of his middle finger curled up and down over the rim.

“Stars, you even ask?”

“I do. Tell me, General. I want to hear you say it.”

“Fuck me. With your fingers and…” He worked his jaw. “With your… tongue…” He shut his eyes and turned his head on the pillow, away from Piett. His skin was kriffing _red_ all the way to the ears, and the blush was extending in splotches down his neck.

Piett grinned. Fought back the urge to cackle like an evil Jedi villain in a holomovie. Grabbed his straining knob and guided it out of his pants. “Don’t you also want me to fuck you with my cock?”

“Yes!”

“Manners, manners, General.” Reluctantly, Piett let go of his own manhood, lest he became tempted to wank all the arousal out. “_Yes_ how?”

“Yes, _sir_.” Veers exhaled with a whimper and turned to stare at Piett again, all pretense of decency and pride gone, like a prisoner begging for his life. “Please, Admiral, fuck me.”

So much blood rushed to his crotch that Piett felt dizzy. “Face-down, then.”

While Veers tossed his large body around on the bed and slid the pillow under his stomach, Piett staggered to the nightstand, opened the drawer and snatched the lube can. A stylized humanoid male struck a dancing pose on the label, and the geographical indication proudly informed the consumer this was a ‘Certified Produce of Zeltros’. It was expensive stuff, of much better quality than the sexual health supplies available at the medbay. It came from the personal belongings of a flight commander who had died chasing the _Millennium Falcon_ in the Hoth asteroid field; surely it was not an heirloom his family would have liked to receive.

He kicked off his loafers, dropped his trousers and stepped out of them, nearly tripping to the floor in a haste he was surprised he couldn’t control.

“Everything alright?” asked Veers in a low, gravelly voice, his face mashed on his crossed arms and one eye peeking up at him. Even now, disheveled and eager to be fucked within an inch of his life, he mustered concern for his superior. A puzzling emotion, tenderer than arousal but just as warm, washed over Piett and plastered a stupid smile to his lips.

Piett climbed onto the mattress between Veers’ bare legs and kneeled in front of his upthrust ass. It was so beautiful he hesitated to touch the pale, round buttocks, even as his mouth filled with saliva and precome damped the front of his pants. “You… you have cleaned yourself up well, haven’t you?” He wiped a streak of drool off the corner of his mouth.

Veers let out a growl and peered over his shoulder to shoot Piett a murderous look. “The inside of my arse is shinier than a stormtrooper’s armor right now, _sir_.”

Well, that did it. Piett crouched and sank his chin into the crevice of Veers’ ass, inhaled loudly the smell of flesh and sweat like the first drag from a cigarette after a lengthy, unsatisfied craving. He felt Veers shudder around him, heard him moan as his lips pressed to the hole, kissed its puckered rim, sucked at it.

Then he pulled back, despite Veers’ grunted protest. His own face felt on fire and his hands trembled as he shook the can and squeezed a thin layer of lube over the target. Veers winced, muttered, “Cold…”

“Give it a moment.” In the meantime, Piett unleashed an all-out attack on his asscheeks—tongue, lips, teeth, hands, nails, pinching hard, raking, biting, slobbering a wet trail of kisses and bites across the firm buns, watching the hair stand as his breath cooled the saliva. Veers' labored breathing broke into a moan each time Piett discovered a particularly sensitive spot.

Speaking of which…

Piett grabbed the underside of Veers’ buttocks and held them open as wide as possible; he dragged his tongue in an arc to the tailbone, paused an instant to spit loose hairs out, then plunged into the trench towards the exhaust port. The lube had coalesced into a thin, slick film over the folds of the rim; it tasted like pepper on raw meat. Made it even better to lap at Veers’ hole in circles and flat strokes, reveling in the taste, teasing until the general’s hips stuttered and he sobbed his name. At last, Piett poked his tongue in. Hot as a reactor core, less resistance than he’d expected. Boonta have mercy, the dirt-pounder had prepared himself bloody well.

Veers went still and silent for a few seconds. As soon as Piett moved his tongue inside him, he cried out, “Fuck—! Yes—”

Piett laughed as he wriggled his tongue in the ring of muscle, the hair all around tickling his face. Veers let out another wanton cry; the powerful muscles in his buttocks tensed under Piett’s slowly massaging hands. Piett slid his tongue out, eliciting a grunt of disappointment. “No rush, General.” His own voice was so low and breathless he doubted Veers had heard him.

“More. Please, Firmus…”

“Hmm. Your behavior is terrible tonight, General.” He pressed his thumb in a deep stroke along Veers’ taint.

“Firmus—!”

“Really terrible. So disrespectful. Why should I keep doing _this_ for you?” He dotted Veers’ hole with the tip of his tongue, sealed his lips over it, grazed the folds with his front teeth.

Veers shuddered again, harder, and sighed loudly as Piett’s tongue re-entered him. It swirled around in the tight, wet space, at varying speed and direction, all motions interspersed with suction at as random intervals as Piett’s clouding brain could devise. His hands never stopped pawing at Veers’ asscheeks, with fingerpads and nails, until the skin was hot and bristled with standing hair.

“Firmus… Firmus…” A gasp. “Admiral?”

“Hmm?”

“Deeper. Please. Deeper.”

Piett stopped and pulled his now numb and aching tongue out of the exhaust port. It was high time to call in the second wave of bombers.

As he spread a layer of lube over his right fore and middle finger, he asked, “Status report, General?”

Veers propped himself up on his unsteady elbows. The backwards-gazing half of his face Piett could see was red, sweaty, framed by short hair sticking to his temple. “Felt exactly as good as I’d always imagined.”

Piett smirked and bowed his head.

“But not enough to make me come.”

“I’d need a Hutt’s tongue for that, dear.”

He laughed tremulously. “Don’t kill the mood with gross mental images right now—ah!”

Piett poked the tip of his forefinger in, down to the first knuckle. He rubbed a few tiny circles in that tight, warm space, allowing an oily sheen of lube to spread, the muscles to cede. Until he could burrow deeper.

Veers huffed and panted in response to the penetration, but did not ask him to stop. Not even as Piett slid his middle finger in as well.

“As I recall—” Piett shut his mouth, disgusted at the guttural sound of his own voice, and cleared his throat. He drew in a deep breath and went on in a good approximation of his normal bedroom tone, “As I recall, last time I did this to you, you made an awful mess of this bed.”

“Can do it again.” It sounded so invitingly much like begging.

Piett winced at a spasm of his cock and the wet trickle cooling on his shaft. “No. Not now.” Stars, _he_ was the one begging. “No blaster fire allowed. Only focus on the depth charge.” He drew his fingers in an arc inside Veers, right where he knew they would find that little nub of rough-textured flesh, and pressed it with both fingertips. Veers bucked so hard the bed shook; before he could gather enough breath to cry out, Piett slid his fingers across the sweet spot, varying speed and direction every few turns.

The room filled with Veers’ delightful moans and grunts. Dark patches of sweat formed under the armpits of his tunic. Piett knew it had to be a figment of his lust-crazed imagination, but he could smell the bruises on Veers’ ass, a touch of blood underneath the brininess.

Still tormenting the prostate, he ran his free hand down Veers’ left asscheek, on hot and red-streaked skin. Veers yelped, the pain clear but immediately diluted into sounds of pleasure.

A stronger twitch of his cock sent Piett to curl up, eyes fluttering to black for a few heartbeats, then refocusing to the glorious sight of bite and scratch marks on the most beautiful arse the Imperial Army had managed to produce. A whimper of pure hunger crept out of his throat, from the depth of his guts, and he licked and kissed along those fiery marks while his fingers besieged the inside.

Veers pawed with hands and feet at the bedcovers as if holding onto a safety tether during a hull breach. His voice didn’t sound like his own anymore—not even his bedroom voice, or a Human voice at all. Boonta bless whatever naval engineer had fitted the admiral’s quarters with sound-proof doors.

“Firmus—I... almost…” Veers’ body tensed, muscles clenched around Piett’s fingers. He pressed hard one last time, and Veers screamed and spasmed for a shuddering eternity.

At the orgasm’s end he sagged back on the pillow, the scream faded to a quiet wail, and immediately he shifted his weight to the right side.

Piett poked his fingers out, as gently as the tremor and soreness of his hand allowed. “Max?”

A cough.

“Everything… everything alright?”

Veers made a strangled noise, cleared his throat a few times, spoke like a droid with a broken vocoder, “So hard. It bloody hurts.”

Oh, the feeling was _so_ mutual. Piett wriggled his trousers down to his knees, looked around and located the lube. “Help is on the way, General. Just hold on.”

Veers responded with a whimper of exasperation and shifted on the pillow. Rubbing himself on it, Piett realized. His own swollen and darkened shaft, as he wrapped a lube-drenched hand around it and spread the goo, felt as hard and hot as an overheated hyperfuel pipe.

He shoved himself unceremoniously into Veers, the slack and well-prepared entrance welcoming his rather average girth with minimum resistance. Veers gasped and arched his body.

“Ain’t even started yet, luv.” Piett’s hands pushed his clothes up off his flanks, freeing flushed skin, grabbing hard onto it.

“I know… I—ah!” he cried as the first pushes, fast and brutal slams at full force, caught his oversensitive rear guard by surprise. Then he started to roll his hips back and thrust his arse up, meeting Piett’s shoves, with enough momentum to almost buck him off. The room, the ship, the whole galaxy spun around Piett, blood deprivation and hormones clouding his vision.

“Ye haran-born sleemo—” he hissed. His fingers sank into Veers’ skin, the grasp slippery on sweaty skin. He shoved and shoved through the cresting ache and pressure in his lower belly and the grating friction of his knees on the trousers fabric, growling whatever obscenity in Huttese or Axxilan Mando’a first bubbled up to his lips until his voice broke into a cry of pain—a blasted cramp, right bloody now, lancing through his loins. But he pressed on the attack.

Veers made high-pitched staccato noises, the likes of which Piett had only heard when men made crass jokes imitating women’s orgasms. His muscles tensed under Piett’s grip, it was like trying to hold onto a slab of durasteel. He came with a shudder and a roar, a whore and a lothwolf fused into one being. Piett kept ramming as fast as he could, through Veers’ climax and after it passed, the body under him going limp. The rhythm in his motions unraveled into blind pounding, sending painful sparkles into his abdomen, legs, back, until he was draped flat atop Veers, biting and panting onto synthwool at the crook of his neck. At last release washed over him, spurted hard and long into Veers’ impossibly hot and clenched body, squeezed every last drop until the universe faded to black.

“…mus. Firmus?”

Veers. He sounded in pain.

Piett’s eyes shot open—when had he closed them? Had he lost consciousness? He lifted his upper body off Veers, propping himself on his elbows, and a muscle in his lower back pulled atrociously. “Bleedin’ hells…”

“Hey. Look… could you… please move? My ass is killing me.”

With much panting and huffing, Piett shifted one aching, cramped limb at a time. “You absolute wimp,” he muttered in the process.

Veers did not retort. He only signed in relief as Piett slid out of him and slumped aside on the mattress. A split second later, he shot up half-sitting and gaped at Veers’ arse: it was _red_ through and through, cheeks and taint and hole, the skin criss-crossed with marks. As far as battered and bruised rearguards went, it beat even the last bulwarks of Rebel troops stranded on Hoth. “How…” he said in a small voice, “how much does it hurt?”

Veers just breathed, too quickly to be asleep, and did not reply.

“Max?” Piett leaned down to look at his face. “Max? Max?”

Nothing. Veers’ face was but few shades paler a red than his arse, glimmering with sweat, his hair soggy, eyes closed, a trickle of drool at the corner of his half-open mouth. Piett ran a hand over his hot forehead, wiping a bit of sweat off. That elicited a mumble, a weak stirring.

“Come on, dear,” said Piett. “Your clothes are drenched. You have to get out of them or you’ll catch a cold.” It was all his fault for not allowing Veers to strip naked right away.

Veers mumbled louder and moved. Shoved the pillow away from under his belly, planted a hand, then the other, onto the mattress and pushed himself up on his knees.

The front of his undershirt had borne the brunt of his come; there were stains on his tunic as well, not as large as those on the undershirt but alarmingly visible on the darker fabric. Veers took both soiled garments off, dabbed his brow and hair with a miraculously clean corner of undershirt, dropped them to the floor and lay back face-down. In the nude, the pale intactness of his back made for a stark contrast with the fiery colour of his arse; helpless, Piett felt his cock twitch lazily back to life. He staggered to his feet and pulled his trousers rudely up, shut a yelp into his mouth, and picked Veers’ tunic off the floor.

Halfway to the ‘fresher, he heard Veers drawl, “No snuggling tonight? I was getting in the mood for it.”

“A… a moment, please, dear.” So Veers still wanted him, even after what Piett had done to him. Instead of quelling his anxieties, it made his stomach roil with shame. He crashed against the sink in the ‘fresher, banged his sore-scratched right knee against the wall below it, and deserved every bit of the pain. Lukewarm water flowed from the tap and he rinsed the drying stains off the tunic. And Veers had wanted him to loiter in bed instead of cleaning up after his own mess. That laser-for-brains tosser hadn’t thought he would have to walk… to _limp_ out of the admiral’s quarters, eventually—late at night cycle, standing spread-legged, wearing more spunk than synthwool for all stormtroopers, officers, techs, droids, Lord Vader and their mums to see.

Piett gritted his teeth and scrubbed the wet fabric harder. Before he left the ‘fresher with the cleaned tunic, he took a single-dose sachet of bacta from the first aid kit.

He found Veers in the same face-down, arse-up position on the bed, half-shut eyes following Piett from just above his crossed arms. The bedsheets bore a massive stain; it had to have seeped to the mattress, too. Piett tried not to stare, but could not help it. “Nine hells, Max.”

“What?”

“Are you sure none of your grandparents was a Gamorrean?”

“Stars, no. Why…? Oh.” He stirred, trying to sit up and failing with a muttered curse. “…Sorry about it. I completely lost control—”

“Well, that was the point. Don’t move, will you?” Piett stood behind him and tore the sachet open. “This might hurt, but only for a little.”

“Wait up…” Veers craned his neck to look over his shoulder, a tad too alarmed for Piett's liking. “I can’t… handle anything more for tonight, I’m afraid. I’m sorry.”

Piett’s heart leapt to his throat, a cold stabbing blade plunging in his chest at its place. He forced himself to laugh over the hurt. “It’s bacta, dear. Your afterburners will be grateful for the fix.” _How dare you be upset, Firmus? You bloody git. Of kriffing course he was going to think you would take advantage of—_

The tirade howled on in his mind as he smiled down at Veers, squeezed the blue gooey content of the sachet onto his palm, and spread it over Veers’ arse. The muscles tightened again into an impressive approximation of an AT-AT outer armor, relaxed a few seconds later, gentle stroke by gentle stroke that tried its pathetic best at undoing what Piett had done.

Of course, he was aware there was nothing pathetic about an effective medical supply he himself had often made use of after a rough bedside ride to Wild Space. He was aware his emotions were daft and irrational. Now _that_ was pathetic. He was.

“You know, it does feel nice,” Veers’ voice startled him, although it was as sleepily conversational a tone as any pillow talk. “The bacta, I mean, and I am used to it. But I guess that’s the very problem.”

Piett wiped the rest of the goo on the back of his hands and lay down on the bed, next to Veers. “Does it remind you of how many times you were shot?”

“And stabbed, bitten, burned… Thrown into the air by an explosion, flailing and screaming and breaking a few bones when I hit the ground…” Veers laughed softly.

“Ah, the tough life of the dirt-pounder.”

“You fleet toffs can’t even imagine.” He tilted his head to the side, resting his cheek on his elbows, a mischievous glint to his eyes. “Have you ever noticed that half of my right afterburner is made of synthskin?”

“And your mother is a purrgil.”

“Not joking in the least! Shrapnel wound, on Felucia. I don’t remember much except it hurt like a Huttfucker.”

“Go figure.” Piett shot a quizzical look at the beautifully shaped, bacta-gelled arse resting next to him. He wanted to touch it again, search with slow and exquisite attention for scar lines, but it was not the right time. “Was it an army surgeon that stitched it back together?”

“No, a Dathomiri witch. Of course it was an army surgeon! Captain Sorgin, if memory serves me right…”

“Army sawbones being this good? Now _that_ is unbelievable.”

Veers laughed. “Fuck you, you’re just bitter because you never noticed until I told you.”

Piett rolled his eyes, ignoring a pang of upset at himself—joke or not, it was the plain truth. He had overlooked an important feature of the operation terrain, again. One heap of waste among many, where the _Millennium Falcon_ was hiding unscanned, until a son-of-a-sleemo bounty hunter waltzed in to tell him.

“But that was the point, you know,” Veers chattered on. “Seeing me with new scars each time I went home on leave made my wife mad. So she told me, before I was sent off to Felucia, if I got wounded again she’d have me sleep on the couch!”

The idiocy was a few parsecs beyond staggering. What did the missus think her husband was up to during a war, folding paper starbirds? She would punish him for doing what, exactly? His duty? “Blast,” he just said, completing the sentence in his mind: _How did you not divorce that akk-bitch, Max?_

“I was delirious by the time they’d carried me to the field hospital and don’t remember a thing, but when I awoke after the operation that cheeky staff sergeant was cracking jokes about gluteal reconstruction preventing blue balls, so I guess I did try to warn the sawbones about doing a good job.”

“You surely were persuasive.”

“Not to brag, but my wife never knew.”

Piett did not like, at all, being put on the same level of unobservant carelessness as the late missus. He liked even less the humor fading from Veers’ face, the expression growing somber, his eyes distant. “Firmus?” Veers asked. “Do you think I... deceived her? By never telling her?”

“The truth would have only worried and angered her. It does that to so many sentients that we need a whole Press Corps to manage it.” Piett gathered a clean edge of the sheet and laid it over himself and Veers’ shoulders, huddling close to him. “If you aren’t feeling cold, you’re wrong.”

“You can just say _you_’re cold, sailor.” Veers wrapped an arm around his waist. “I won’t judge you.”

“Hmm.” Immersed in the warmth and scent of Veers after sex, Piett let his eyes close. He took slow breaths, savoring the air between them, salty with sweat and juices. Veers’ arm warmed his lower back where the muscles pulled, melting the ache away.

A kiss on his lips roused him from a doze he hadn’t realized he was slipping into.

“I can’t stop thinking about it,” Veers breathed so close that each word was a light kiss. “How you just fucked me with this mouth of yours.”

“And you loved it, didn’t you?”

The answer were lips sealed to his, a thick tongue plunging in, a soft rumbling whimper. Piett let him lead for a while, then returned the deep kiss, until they both ran out of breath. Gone was the chill; Piett felt almost hot, basking in the furnace that was Veers’ body, and a remarkable amount of that heat was being channeled between his legs.

He took Veers’ hand, guided it there. “Do you have time for another round?” At the slightest feel of tickling fingers on his shaft, he purred.

“I wish, sailor.” Grunting, Veers pulled himself off the bed and up to his feet. He flexed his back and his neck a few times, and looked around for his clothes.

Wrapped up in the warm, sullied bedcovers, Piett watched him dress up, top first. “Max, your shirt…”

“Yes?” He was already fastening the tunic over it. The water had mostly dried.

“It’s _a mess_.”

“Nobody is going to see it. Just one of our many little secrets.”

Piett shifted his legs. Damn, his blaster cannon was still loading up.

Veers picked up his underwear, stared at it for a few seconds, then folded it up, put on his trousers, and stuffed the pants in his pocket. He gave Piett a foxy look. “I don’t like wearing synthcotton over fresh bacta. It gets sticky.”

Piett was too dumbstruck to reply. He ogled as Veers completed the work with his boots, gloves, cap and belt, humming as he did so.

“Goodnight, Admiral,” he said at last. “Thank you for everything. Do let me know when I can return the favor in kind.”

“…Are you going to go commando all day tomorrow?”

“There is only one way you will find out. Maybe after the 16:15 briefing?”

“Maybe.”

Flush spreading all over his face again, a slight limp to his steps that could pass off as an old wound pain, Veers left the admiral’s quarters.

It took Piett a few seconds to process what had just happened and what promised to improve his morale after the next day’s briefing.

He kicked the sheet off, lay down on his back, and gripped his shaft.


End file.
